House of The Second Roundtable
by yikes-a-bear
Summary: What happens when another student of Anubis House realizes they are also a Chosen One, and must find and rescue a second cup of life - the Holy Grail?
1. Chapter 1

House of The Second Roundtable

One cup that grants eternal life has been discovered - and saved - by Nina, with the help of Fabian and the rest of the Sibuna teens. What happens when another student of Anubis House realizes they are also a Chosen One, and must find and rescue a second such cup - the Holy Grail?

* * *

Nine happy-but-exhausted-looking teens trudged back through the imposing doors of Anubis House.

"Well, I don't know about all of you, but I have to get to bed, right now," Amber, the last one in, said definitively as she closed the door behind her. "If I don't get at least 7 hours of sleep, my eyes get all puffy and dark and old-person-looking." She visibly grimaced at the very thought.

"We wouldn't want that now, would we?" Alfie smirked.

"Well, I would hope you wouldn't want it," Amber shrugged. "I would assume you'd want your girlfriend to look her very best."

"Did you….did you say…g…g…girlfriend?" Alfie stammered.

"Yes, but you're on probation," Amber smiled. "It'll take at least sixty days for me to decide for sure. Oh! I almost forgot. I haven't given you the Official Boyfriend Manual yet. You'll need to start studying that immediately, so I'll go fetch it right away," Amber rushed up the stairs, leaving a stunned Alfie at the bottom of the stairs looking at Jerome for help.

"Don't look at me, mate," Jerome said as he held up his hands. "This is what you've wanted all along, right?"

"Well, yeah, but a…a boyfriend MANUAL?" Alfie whispered.

"Heads up!" Amber's voice echoed down the stairwell as a 6-inch pink binder flew through the air and landed with a thud at Alfie's feet.

"That's Part 1," Amber waved from the top of the stairwell. "I'll give you the other three in the morning." She blew him a kiss as she turned towards her room..

Alfie grunted as he struggled to lift the heavy binder off of the floor. "There's THREE more of these?" Sighing heavily, he shuffled towards his room as the rest of the group suppressed chuckles.

"I'm off to bed too, babe," Mick yawned as he placed a gentle kiss on Mara's forehead.

"Me too," she smiled. She looked around at her remaining friends. "I'm just glad you all finally made it to the dance. Where were you guys, anyway?"

"YAWN! Does anyone know what time it actually is?" Patricia quickly changed the subject as she squinted in the direction of the clock in the hallway.

"Way past your bedtime, young miss," Jerome smirked. "Now, now, off to bed with you lot."

Patricia glared at Jerome. "Whatever, Jerome." She linked her arm through Joy's as Jerome shrugged and turned towards his and Alfie's room. "I'm so glad your dad said you could stay for the prom and spend the night here. It'll be just like old times."

Joy gave her friend a happy but tired smile as they started walking up the stairs behind Mara. "Don't know how long I'll last through a round of Twilight movie trivia, but I'll try." Joy turned to look down at Nina. "You coming, Nina?" she asked with a friendly smile.

"Sure, just a minute," Nina replied, grateful that there were no hard feelings between her and Patricia's best friend and former roommate. Between the whole Chosen-One, "being the new me", as Joy had said, and whatever went on between Joy and Fabian before Nina had gotten there, she was happy that Joy still looked at her as a potential friend.

Nina took in a deep breath. A sort of peace had finally descended on Anubis House, and after all she'd been through since the first day she had arrived, it was something that would take some getting used to.

"You look as if you're somewhere else," a soft voice said next to her.

Nina smiled as she turned to look at Fabian. "Just wondering how all of this ended up working out so perfectly, that's all. It seems almost too good to be true."

"Funny," he smiled as he leaned in to kiss her, "I was thinking the same thing, only it was about you."

While their kiss at the dance a few minutes ago had been short, and a little awkward, the kiss they shared now in the hallway was something that felt more natural (but still very exciting!), especially when they had no audience watching them. Time seemed to slide away as Fabian folded her into a long embrace.

"Winter break is going to feel like forever," Nina whispered as they pulled apart and she clasped both of Fabian's hands in hers. "I won't see you until it's a whole new year! And I won't get to celebrate your birthday with you."

"One of the many downsides of having a birthday during holiday break," Fabian shrugged. "Not to mention the whole your-birthday-is-so-close-to-Christmas-that-we'll-just-give-you-one-present thing."

"Is there any way I can help make it up to you?" Nina smiled with a twinkle in her eye.

"You already have," he smiled back as he looped his arm around her shoulder. "Come on, Cinderella. I'll walk you to your door."

* * *

_I've had the same dream every night since leaving Anubis House the day after the end-of -year prom. I don't ever dream - well, that's not true, of course, everyone dreams; I just don't ever remember mine. But this one feels more real every night, even after I've already woken up._

_I'm standing in front of an old, crumbling stone archway in the middle of the forest. The air seems to shimmer just beyond the archway on the other side, then I can see an old tapestry, only the figures on it are moving, as if they are alive. I see a group of three men in armor, kneeling outside of some sort of ancient looking church. As one of the three men stands up and starts to enters the church, the second man turns, seems to look at me, and passes me a needle and thread through the archway. I start to hear the wind blowing, and the tapestry starts to unravel as I hear one sentence blowing on the wind…_

"_Only __you__ can complete it."_

_Then the thread and needle fly out of my hand as a stinging wind whips through the archway towards me, and then back in again. Then the archway collapses and I fall down into the dirt, feeling like an abysmal failure._

_

* * *

_

Who's the dreamer? Stay tuned...:)


	2. Chapter 2

Nina stepped out of the taxi and took a deep breath, bundling herself up further from the chilly winter English wind. She couldn't wait to get inside the house and see everyone, especially Fabian. Even though they'd spent the break chatting on Skype, seeing someone on a computer screen just wasn't the same.

"NEEEENS!" Amber's voice echoed through the hallway as she opened the door and swept up her friend in a huge hug. "Ohmygosh I have SO many clothes to show you! And I have your Christmas pressie - well, pressies, as in more than one…."

Nina beamed at Amber's enthusiam. "I missed you too Amber." As she returned her friend's hug, she scanned the hallway for Fabian, but caught someone else's eye instead.

"Oh, hi Nina," Joy said as she walked down the stairwell. "How was your break?"

"Kinda boring, actually, especially considering what the last few months were like here," she smiled. As Amber loosened her vise-like grip on her, Nina seemed to suddenly remember something. "That reminds me! This is for you," she smiled, pulling a slim parcel out of her travel bag. "I saw it over break, and it was just too perfect to pass up. Consider it a welcome-back-to-Anubis-House present."

Joy inspected the package, which was wrapped in a festive holiday themed paper featuring photos of the Twilight characters in Santa hats. "Well, I definitely love the outside already."

"Open it!" Nina grinned.

Joy flipped the package over and pulled the paper apart on the back seam. As she finished removing the paper and flipped the item back over, she beamed. It was a finely-crafted journal with a faux-framed front, featuring a manga version of Edward, Bella, Jacob and the rest of the Cullen family from Twilight. "Where on earth did you find this?"

"My gran loves vintage and craft fairs, and when she heard there was a new one in town, she brought me along. Turns out the lady who made this lives 3 doors down from her house. Small world, right?" Nina smiled.

Joy's eyes looked bright, and she impulsively hugged Nina. "Thank you! Now I can definitely see why Patricia likes you so much."

Nina looked confused. "Are we talking about the same Patricia?"

Joy laughed. "Yes, silly! I'm going to go run up and let her know you're here." With that, she turned and ran back up the stairs.

"Can I have a hug now too, Santa?" a very familiar voice asked from behind her.

"Fabian!" Nina exclaimed and leapt into his arms. He swung her around in an elated hug. "I've so, so missed you!"

"I didn't think January would ever get here," Fabian said as he dipped her, then gave her a soft kiss.

"Awwwww," Amber said, clutching her hands to her heart. Alfie then made the unfortunate mistake of choosing this very moment to walk down the boy's hallway into the main atrium and was met with a punch in the arm from Amber.

"Uhm, OW!" he hollered. "Now what did I do?"

"Why didn't you do that when you first saw me after break?" Amber complained as she gestured at the still-dipping-and-smooching pair.

"I pulled a muscle lugging around all of your Official Boyfriend Manual binders," Alfie complained. "Do you know I asked Mick earlier today if he could pick all of them up at the same time, and even he couldn't hold them all up for more than a few seconds?"

Amber pouted. "Well, if you felt THAT way about it, you could have always asked me for the e-reader version."

"There's an electronic version?" Alfie asked incredulously.

"With a searchable index, but that's not important right now," she grinned as she bounced over to Fabian and Nina, who had finally broken their embrace, and swept them both up in a monster hug. "What's important is we are all finally here and back where we belong!"

"Nina!" an excited voice echoed from the hallway. "I didn't know you were back already!"

Nina was almost taken aback at Patricia's exuberance as she shot down the stairs and embraced Nina, a huge change from the reaction she'd gotten from the girl the first day she had arrived at Anubis House several months ago. _I guess Joy was right after all about Patricia's really being my friend_, she thought. _Although she sometimes sure has a weird way of showing it._

_

* * *

_

After a dinner spent mostly chatting non-stop about break, presents, and other holiday gossip, most of Anubis House plopped down in the living room, to relax and digest their evening meal, except for Nina and Joy, who had both had the unlucky privilege to draw first week for kitchen duty. After a few minutes of bustling around the kitchen, Joy shot a sidelong glance at Nina.

"Nina, can I….can I talk to you….about something?" she asked tentatively.

"Sure," Nina said as she placed two more dishes into the soapy water in the sink.

"I, uhm, well there's no real easy way to say this," Joy stammered. Nina was a bit taken aback by how utterly uncomfortable the other girl looked.

"It's just that, well, you ended up being so NICE, and not at all what I expected, even after Patricia told me I should really give you a chance, and then you got me that amazing present even though you barely know me, and…" Joy continued. "Oh I just have to say it. Nina, I have something to confess to you."

Nina got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Whatever this was, it was not going to be good.

"At the dance, well, when Fabian was standing around waiting for you to come back, Patricia sort of asked me if I still liked Fabian and I said…." she turned red, "I said…well, that 'that Nina girl better watch out next term'."

An uncomfortable silence drifted across the kitchen.

"But I didn't mean it - I mean, I don't mean it anymore," Joy continued. "It's just that it was such a long few months for me with the whole Chosen One thing, and it was so hard being away from everyone here for so long, and I was feeling jealous, and replaced, and…."

Nina walked over to the other girl and took her hands in her own. "I totally understand, Joy." She gave the other girl's hands a squeeze. "That must have been really, really hard for you to say to me."

Joy nodded. "I hope you can forgive me."

"I can't forgive you because there's nothing to forgive you for," Nina smiled as she let go of Joy's hands and gave her a quick hug. "There's something I wanted to ask you, though, now that well, the cat's out of the bag and all."

"By cat, you mean Fabian?" Joy asked.

"Well, yeah," It was now Nina's turn to look uncomfortable.

"Shoot," Joy said as she grabbed a nearby a dish towel.

"What exactly was….you know, with you and Fabian before….you know…." Nina lamely attempted to finish her sentence.

Joy smiled as she picked up a large serving platter and began to dry it. "You ever really liked someone, like really, really liked them, and sort of thought maybe they liked you back, but neither one of you ever did anything about it?"

Memories of 8th grade and Brad Kavanaugh danced through Nina's head. "Definitely."

"Well, that was me and Fabian," Joy said as she walked over to the cabinet to put the now-clean platter back in its proper place. "But I realize now I can't blame you - or anyone else - for doing something and acting on something I never had the courage to do."

"I'm really sorry, Joy," Nina said. "If I had known, I'd never have…."

"After I saw you guys at the dance together, I could see you two were really meant to be," Joy observed. "I just hope someday Robert Pattinson realizes what he's missing and gets himself over here so I can have my moment too." She flashed Nina a huge grin.

Nina rinsed the last two dishes in the sink and passed them to Joy to dry. "I'm really, really glad we had this talk."

"Me too," the other girl smiled back, looking as if a two-ton weight had finally been lifted off her shoulders.

* * *

_I'd hoped now that was I back at Anubis House with all of my friends that the dreams would have stopped, but if anything, they've gotten more frequent and even more confusing. I'm still dreaming of a tapestry through the same archway, except this one features two men - one older and one younger - fighting on a medieval battlefield. The older one brandishes an elaborate looking sword at the younger one, who pulls out a cup and holds it in front of him, as if to shield himself from the blow. Then the tapestry catches on fire and crumbles to ash on the ground. A dark-haired woman, about my mum's age, steps through the archway and places a needle and thread in my hands. _

_Only __you__ can complete it._

_And then, right before she is about to say my name, I wake up._


End file.
